Bus rapid transit, like the RTA HealthLine in Cleveland, “can not only spur development, but can do so far more efficiently than light rail and streetcars,” according to this Forbes.com story previewing a study due out later this month from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.“Both BRT and LRT can leverage many times more development investment than they cost. Now we can say that for sure,” says the institute's director for the U.S. and Africa, Annie Weinstock. “Per dollar of transit investment, and under similar conditions, BRT can leverage more (development) investment than LRT or streetcars.”For example, the story says, the HealthLine “has generated $5.8 billion in development —$114 for each transit dollar invested.” By contrast, Portland's Blue Line, a light rail project completed in 1986, generated $3.74 per dollar invested.BRT's efficiency “makes sense — bus rapid transit lines are generally cheaper to develop than rail lines (though some transportation experts balk at the comparison) — but the difference has never before been documented,” according to Forbes.com.“The first conclusion we're able to draw here is that actually BRT is able to leverage development. This is the first time we have an analysis to say that definitively,” Ms. Weinstock says. “And it can leverage a lot of development. Three of the corridors (studied) leveraged more than a billion dollars in development.”The U.S. has seven authentic BRT lines: Cleveland, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Eugene Ore., and several in Pittsburgh.The institute's report is scheduled to be available here on Sept. 27.

This and that

Staying upright: An Associated Press analysis of 607,380 bridges in the most recent federal National Bridge Inventory showed that 65,605 were classified as "structurally deficient" and 20,808 as "fracture critical."

Of those, the AP says, “7,795 were both — a combination of red flags that experts say indicate significant disrepair and similar risk of collapse.”Those red-flag bridges “are located in all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, and include the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, a bridge on the New Jersey highway that leads to the Lincoln Tunnel, and the Main Avenue Bridge in Cleveland,” according to the AP.The story notes that engineers “say the bridges are safe. And despite the ominous sounding classifications, officials say that even bridges that are structurally deficient and fracture critical are not about to collapse.”Imagine that: Cleveland attorney Matt Kadish is quoted extensively in this Bloomberg story about the Internal Revenue Service's decision to start using “image and likeness” as a factor in determining the value of estates of deceased celebrities.The move is “raising concern among trust and estate lawyers,” according to the story.For instance, documents recently released in litigation between the estate pop star Michael Jackson and the IRS “showed that a large part of the dispute revolves around the value of Jackson's image and likeness,” the news service reports. While the estate assessed the value of his image at $2,105, the IRS's valuation was more than $430 million.The IRS valued his estate at more than $1.1 billion and said executors significantly undervalued his property, resulting in a tax deficiency of more than $505 million and additions to tax of more than $196 million, Bloomberg reports.Mr. Kadish, of Kadish, Hinkel & Weibel in Cleveland, tells the news service that he's “unaware of any cases to date that have addressed whether the value of a person's image rights are subject to estate tax, and if so, how to value them.” (The story notes that several Tax Court decisions “have addressed the value of a celebrity's image and likeness for income tax purposes,” such as when Mr. Kadish's firm represented professional golfer Retief Goosen in a dispute over sponsorship payments.)

“Those cases focused on allocations of income, and apart from some dicta, didn't directly rule on whether image rights are a separate asset for tax purposes,” Mr. Kadish says.He says he has “major concerns” about the IRS's “sudden decision” to include image and likeness as part of a taxable estate “without having provided any prior guidance or opportunity for public comment.”$1 billion? You're a little short:Here is the new Forbes.com list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. (My condolences that you're not on it. Me either.)There are three Ohioans on the list: retail magnate Leslie Wexner of New Albany, who's worth $5.7 billion, pet food entrepreneur Clayton Mathile of the Dayton area, who's worth $2 billion, and Catherine Lozick, heiress to the Swagelok industrial fortune, who is at No. 327 on the list with a net worth of $1.7 billion.Bill Gates is the richest American for the 20th year in a row and has reclaimed the title of world's richest person from Mexico's Carlos Slim with a net worth of $72 billion.The 400 wealthiest Americans are worth a record $2.02 trillion, which Forbes.com says is “roughly equivalent to the GDP of Russia.” The figure is “a gain of $300 billion from a year ago, and more than double a decade ago.”The minimum net worth needed to make the 400 list was $1.3 billion. Because the bar is so high, 61 American billionaires didn't make the cut.You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio.

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